Look 01 · Conditioned / Problem garment
The Conditioned
A heavy navy coat of patchwork, glitter seams and white fur: armour built from everything we learn to fear. Underneath, a lilac corset with a light at its heart.
Art to Wear 2026 · 1st runner-up
Unlearning
Two garments and an installation about how we learn to see each other as labels, and how we might unlearn it.
- Role
- Team head, one of five
- I worked on
- Concept and research, garment and accessory design, installation, electronics, modelling
- Team
- Aarohi, Dheerendra, Divyakshi, Farheen, Vidushi
No one is born knowing how to hate. We learn it through fear, labels and divisions. And if something is learned, it can also be unlearned.
01 · The problem
As adults, we learn to see each other as labels.
Burnout, comparison and fear of judgment in one person. Polarisation, bias and hate across a society.
02 · The insight
Children don’t. They meet people with curiosity, not categories.
They express freely, trust easily, and put humanity before identity.
03 · The question
What changes between childhood and adulthood, and can it be unlearned?
We traced it through five stages of research, from early empathy to dehumanisation and back.
Evidence board
Five stages of research.
Developmental psychology, social learning, moral disengagement, and Zen.
01
Children as natural empaths
02
Social conditioning
03
Dehumanisation emerges
04
The adult crisis
05
Thinking like children
Concept · The Beginner’s Heart
A child’s approach is not naive. It is uncorrupted.
The problem
We explored dehumanisation: reducing people to labels, stereotypes or objects. When people are seen as categories, empathy fades and harm becomes easier to justify. It isn’t inherent. It is learned, through fear, hierarchy and conditioning.
The answer
Zen calls it the Beginner’s Heart: meeting the world without preconceived notions, rigid judgments or learned hatred. Not becoming childish, but consciously unlearning conditioned perception.
Final direction
Not to the past, but to an earlier way of seeing.
The garments
Two looks, one story.
One is what we learn. The other is what we were before we learned it.
Look 02 · Beginner’s Heart / Solution garment
The Beginner’s Heart
Yellow organza that moves like light, with resin details and a white flower at the waist. Open, soft and unguarded.
Process
Process
Research, materials, the installation and the electronics.
Thinking
01Rewind to…Mapping where the idea could go.
02Adult problemsBurnout, fear, comparison, isolation.
03Into societyFrom one person to polarisation and violence.
04The UnlearningWhere the solutions began.
Materials
05Material boardNavy, yellow and lilac silks, black net, white fur, pearls.
Installation
06Organza leavesShaping the leaves that wrap the column.
Electronics
07Inside the corsetLED strips, wiring and cells sewn into the lining.
08Arduino and servosThe board and two servos behind the moving parts.
09The corset, closedThe lilac corset worn under the coat.
10The corset, litLED strips glowing through the silk.
Art to Wear 2026
On stage
Both looks and the installation at Art to Wear 2026.
Result · Art to Wear 2026
1st
runner-up
Two looks, one installation and a team of five.
Shoot
The shoot
A conceptual night shoot of both looks.
Fashion film · 30 seconds
